Tuesday, 19 November 2013

Back to Fitness

This week I have restarted my diet and fitness regime having had it slip massively over the last few months. One of the reasons I started the blog was to give myself some accountability on my weight loss as well as to have a place to write about gaming.

Today I weigh 15st and 6 lbs. I have a short Diet Bet started with a colleague at work, I did Kettlebell Swings and restarted the 100 pushup challenge this morning and Thursday I’m going back to Tai Chi.

I’ll update my weight loss and exercise each Thursday and that will also give me some momentum to have something written to go with it.

My goal is to get down to 13 Stone in the next 3 months. 

Tuesday, 12 November 2013

Demon Armour and a new use for Icon Rolls.

Typically worn by the champions of the Demon lords attempting to escape the Abyss, these suits of armour, cannot be removed without a ritual related to exorcism or removing curses. Such rituals often cause the Demon to revert to it’s true form and start a fight.

They are created by the Demon lords by either skinning Demons alive or polymorphing them directly into the suits.

The armours quirks reflect the Demon used to create it and the armour might cause mutations especially if you over attune. Over attunement might also cause the Demon that it is made of to gain a foothold in the wearer's mind.

If the Armour wearer or any of his companions has an Icon relationship with the Diabolist then 5’s and 6’s get more interesting.

A 6 could grant access to a random demonic special ability for one fight while a 5 could involve the Armour rebelling against the wearer or requiring a sacrifice of some kind (blood, souls, gold other Player characters) to keep working.

Here are a couple of examples.

Robe of Imps:
This Robe is made from the skin of a dozen imps stitched together,
Light Armour +2 (can be worn by a spellcaster with a Diabolic Icon relationship as no Armour)
Flock of Imps 1x Day as a move action the wearer turns into a flock of Imps and flies to one nearby place he can see.
Quirk: Each of the Imps has a slightly different thing it wants. One might need moisturising, one might hate getting wet, one might constantly want the wearer to sas or back talk everyone nearby, one is a coward.
When you over attune all the imp skins have something they want, and the more extreme ones start getting a say Pyromania, a desire to accidentally poison your companions.

Balor Plate
This suit of full plate Armour is created by Polymorphing a Balor into a sticky alive looking suit of Plate mail.
Heavy Armour +3
Catch on Fire: 1/day: Like a wild Balor’s Fiery aura the Suit catches fire. It deals 1d6 Fire Damage per point of the escalation die to all enemies engaged with the wearer. If you have an outstanding 5 with the Diabolist then this fire damage might also hurt you.

Using Icon relationships to generate re-rolls

Inspired by FATE I was thinking about a way to let 5’s and 6’s on Icon relation ship rolls provide re-rolls and compels.

If you can relate your 6 to the roll either via your one unique thing or the relevant Icon relationship you can spend it for a re-roll.

5’s first have to make life more complicated for you and then can be spent for a re roll (again both should relate to your one unique thing or the relevant Icon Relationship)

I’m going to test this out in play tonight.

Monday, 4 November 2013

Cranmore Con!

This weekend I ran a small Games Convention in my house as part of Playing Every Game I Own.

We played loads of games this weekend.

Ascencion Rise of the Vigil

Frag Gold Edition 
photo.JPG
Pathfinder using the Pregens from the Pathfinder Society OP system. We chose randomly and delved into a buried castle.


Three Dragon Ante 

Savage Worlds. (A Spelljammer style flying dungeon pirate type setting made up form the players feedback).

Then on Sunday we played Dan’s Mage/Cortex hack based on The Mage the Ascension Job by Dave Chalker.







So with them I have played the following game from my collection so far:

  1. Ascension
  2. Zombie Munchkin
  3. Love Letter
  4. Cthulhu Fluxx
  5. Penny Arcade Deckbuilding Game
  6. Jungle Speed
  7. Cockroach Poker
  8. Carcassonne
  9. Dominion
  10. Swashbuckling Adventures
  11. Shadowrun
  12. Apples to Apples
  13. Castle Panic
  14. Villa Palleti
  15. Dobble
  16. Feng Shui
  17. Pathfinder
  18. Three Dragon Ante
  19. Frag
  20. Cortex/Mage
  21. Savage worlds

Friday, 25 October 2013

6 Session DnD-ish campaign.

Inspired by Cthulhu being in the Pathfinder Bestiary 4 (it’s out this week!) I came up with this short campaign idea while selling it to my customers. I’ll probably run it either after I have Played Everything I own or else run each adventure in a different system and use it to tick 6 RPG’s off my list. This would also work as a one level per adventure Campaign for 13th Age by adding an adventure about each of your characters into the mix.  The plan would be as follows:

1st adventure
3rd ish level in Pathfinder, (1st level in 13th age). Cultists kidnap PC (maybe a player who can’t make the first session)/ loved one/contact/person about to reveal the plot etc. Players go on to investigate in a city and fight in short dungeon under/above/as part of a less well known part of a city.  This could be catacombs, dungeons, rooftop thieves area, the Shades style dubious quarter, a maze etc. Players man up and gain contacts, allies and a better understanding of their local home.

2nd adventure
6th ish level. Clues or cut scenes lead to one of the many towns full of fish men on the sea shore type adventures. Fish man leader/human contact is one PC’s Father.  This could be obvious from a PC’s heritage or maybe explain any foreshadowing I’ve put in from previously in the adventure e.g. PC falls in a well but is able to survive longer, not great with sunshine etc. Players adventure and gain allies.

3rd adventure
9th ish level. From an end of last/beginning of this adventure reveal, it turns out cultists are in charge of something important.  A PC’s contact (from the first adventure?) tells them that some massive authority figure (leader of the city from the first adventure) is actually a cultist and the PCs will go and fight that person/creature etc. At end of session one PC is put in charge of the thing. Players kit up and go and save the city.

4th Adventure
12th ish level. From interrogating the baddie in the last session or his minions and clues the PCs find, it turns out cult also has backing of rival nation! This means War! What is it good for? A DnD adventure! Go recruit monstrous allies, perform devils bargains then pull out the square bases for a big battle! Players ally up and go and save the country.
This could be alluded to in previous adventures where people in foreign colours are wandering around or maybe a treaty is being worked on, or all the treasure turn up in foreign minted coins.  

5th adventure
15th ish level. Turns out while there was a big distracting war the leaders of the other country /cult sacrificed loads of people in a big ritual to summon a giant monster (like Cthulhu). Bad giant things base turns up (Moon gets closer, Island rises from beneath the sea, Volcano erupts. Destroying players home base for maximum emotional involvement).  Players deal with this problem and have to go back into first dungeon from campaign where secret chamber has opened revealing Zords/magic weapons/powerful dead guys etc. Players gain awesome special moves and go and save the world.

6th adventure
18th -20th level (add mythic or epic levels from the cool toys they got last time)
Go to Giant Monster’s secret lair and fight them.  Players gain enlightenment, death and maybe go to create their own city, kingdom, world or cult!
Profit!

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

Playing Every Game I own by the end of the Year.

Posts have been a little on the light/ non-existent side over here while I have been moving house and sorting some stuff out. However we are now moved in to a new place. We have some shelves up and some games on shelves and are making good inroads into sorting the place out.

One of the things I thought of as I was unpacking my many games is how seldom I play some of them, then I thought about how cool it would be to play all of them!

So that is my new plan, in December by the end of the year I will play every game I own.

The first thing I need to do to be able to do it is to make a list of every game I own and then make sure there are enough hours in December the year to do so. I might also arrange a mini games convention in the new place in December to help play them all!

All the games I own, (That I can remember right now)
Boardgames
  1. Ascension Deckbuilding game
  2. Battle Lore
  3. Bang
  4. Go,
  5. Mah Jong
  6. Cards; Crib, Poker
  7. Dominos
  8. Carcassonne
  9. Apples to Apples
  10. Cash n’ Guns
  11. Descent
  12. Dominion
  13. Talisman (it’s K8’s but should go on the list)
  14. The AD&D Trivia Game (I should throw this out)
  15. Three Dragon Ante
  16. The Duke (This is Natalies so I might be able to get away without it)
  17. Settlers of Catan, Rivals for Catan,
  18. Ticket to Ride Europe
  19. Frag Gold edition
  20. Order of the Stick boardgame (I might leave this one set up and play it over the course of the month to get it finished)
  21. World of Warcraft collectible miniatures game (again I might get rid of this before I start)
  22. Villa Paletti
  23. Zombie Dice
  24. Dragon Dice
  25. Love Letter
  26. Castle Panic (This belongs to Mike I should give it back)
  27. Fury of the Clansmen
  28. Dobble
  29. Cockroach poker
  30. Munchkin
  31. Wings of War
  32. Cthulhu Fluxx
  33. Jungle Speed
  34. Doctor Who Card Game
  35. Shadows over Camelot (The Recent Tabletop about this was great)
  36. The Pathfinder Card Game
RPGS
  1. 13th Age
  2. Dungeons and Dragons (Any edition probably Next)
  3. Pathfinder
  4. D20 Varients: Arcana Evolved, Spycraft,
  5. Lamentations of the Flame Princess
  6. Shadowrun
  7. Numenera
  8. Savage Worlds, Deadlands, 50 Fathoms, Hell on Earth,
  9. Deadlands
  10. Rune RPG
  11. Feng Shui RPG
  12. Mouse Guard, Burning Wheel, Burning Empires
  13. Fate, Spirit of the Century, Dresden Files,
  14. Fighting Fantasy
  15. Warhammer Fantasy RPG
  16. Star Wars Edge of the Empire RPG, Star Wars Saga RPG
  17. Leverage
  18. Dark Heresy
  19. Smallville
  20. Eleventh Doctor RPG
  21. The One Ring Rpg
  22. Exalted
  23. Iron Kingdoms
  24. Heroswars/ Heroquest
  25. Over the Edge Rpg
  26. Weapons of the Gods
  27. Gumshoe, Night's Black Agents, Trail of Cthulhu, Esoterrorists, Mutant City Blues
  28. Cthlhutech RPG
  29. Qin the warring states
  30. Dread RPG, Jenga
Wargames
  1. Warmachine, Hordes,
  2. Warhammer fantasy battles (I might not actually own rules for this, and I would have to improvise Armies.)
  3. Battletech
  4. Arcane Legions
  5. Full Thrust
  6. Mobile Frame Zero
Card Games
  1. Magic the Gathering
  2. Legend of the Five Rings (War of Honour) CCG and RPG
Other Games
  1. Killer

I will no doubt need much assistance to accomplish this so if you would like to play or run one of the above games let me know. Also feel free to fill the comments with the number of these games you own.

The very talented Dr Bradbeer had this to say when I posited the idea on Stalker Book:

“One or two board games/CCG a day is plausible, as long as you don't mind the risk of the girls strangling you by the end of the month. The wargames too if you're prepared to give up weekends. Adding in the RPGs is insanity.

UNLESS, you got people to write you one-encounter RPG campaigns with a pregen character and a total time limit of half an hour or so, which you then played, by Facetime if necessary, one a day or so. That might be a pretty cool project. I'd be up for helping.

OR, Crisis in Infinite Timelines, where you create a character without stats, who then hops from game setting to game setting, a new one every day, for a new encounter....”

So If you want to make an short adventure/encounter for one of the games above let me know!